Living in the now

Childhood Crush Confession 101 December 6, 2007

It started one week ago tomorrow. The confessions of your childhood crushes was spawned as an idea by Gedeon Maheux during an exchange on Twitter last Friday. Here’s a list of the participants, so you can see for whom we swooned:

Who remembers the Ice Princess? It was said to be the world’s largest uncut diamond. What world was that? The wonderful soap opera world of General Hospital in the early 1980s. With it in his possession, the evil megalomaniac, Dr. Evil Mikkos Cassadine, wished to harness the power of the Ice Princess to control the weather…and the world! Mooohahaha!!! Who would save Port Charles and make my heart skip a beat while doing it? Why none other than Laura Spencer (Genie Francis) and…oh yeah, some guys named Luke (Anthony Geary) and Scorpio (Tristan Rogers).

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From Luke & Laura and the Ice Princess to Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia. I always wanted to be Luke when playing with my Star Wars action figures as a kid, and my friend (Donnie) would be Han Solo. Prior to Return of the Jedi (1983), both of us would vie for the affections of the young senator from Alderaan. After RotJ, it got a little weird because Luke had a ssssister, a twin sister. However, that no longer mattered as any red-blooded adolescent boy growing up in 1983 had the image of Carrie Fisher dressed in a metal bikini permanently burned into their memory banks. Not even Bail Organa could memory-wipe that from my mind.

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When Gedeon initially proposed this blog idea, one of the first names that popped into my head was Christine “Moose” McGlade from the Canadian imported You Can’t Do That On Television, which ran on Nickelodeon in its early days. I’m not sure why I was attracted to her. Maybe it had something to do with her saying, “I don’t know” and getting slimed in a Flashdance fashion. When did that ever happen? Maybe this falls under the Too Much Information category. Ged, I thought you said this was supposed to a guilt-free chance to share our crushes with the world!

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During the summer of 1984, I became infatuated with a certain 4′ 9″ gymnast by the name of Mary Lou Retton. America (and I) had their eyes glued to this energetic, leotard-clad student of Bela Karolyi. She scored a perfect 10 (because she was) in her final vault to give her the gold medal in the individual all-around women’s gymnastic competition. Even though she was 16 and I was 13 at the time, John Williams would have played the “Olympic Fanfare and Theme” at our wedding. Da-Da-Dant! Da-Da-Dant! Dant-Da-Dant-Da-Da! Hey, Anakin was just 9 when he fell in love with the 14-year old Padme.

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The day after the Games of the XXIII Olympiad ended on August 12, 1984, a short-lived ABC TV show Call to Glory premiered and helped start the career of Elisabeth Shue. She played Jackie Sarnac, the teenage daughter of the fictitious USAF pilot Colonel Raynor Sarnac (Craig T. Nelson) at Edward Air Force Base in the early 1960s. Earlier that year, she captured my heart as well as the heart of Ralph Macchio in The Karate Kid. She would later marry Tom Cruise in Cocktail (1988) and become Mrs. Marty McFly in Back to the Future Part II (1989). How could I compete with them?

Moooooooosssseee! Good one Dave! Right there with ya on that one. Well, pretty much all of them… except Genie Francis, but that’s because I had no clue what soap operas were growing up. Thanks for bearing it all for the world to see. Another round of digital group therapy 🙂

[…] davegoblog wrote an interesting post today on Childhood Crush Confession 101Here’s a quick excerptNelson) at Edward Air Force Base in the early 1960s. Earlier that year, she captured my heart as well as the heart of Ralph Macchio in The Karate Kid. She would later marry Tom Cruise in Cocktail (1988) and become Mrs. … […]

* Morgan Fairchild – “Yeah, that’s the ticket.”
* Jackie Zeman – Another actress from General Hospital.
* Bo Derek – Apparently I have a thing for conservative Republicans (see also Mary Lou Retton).
* Dian Parkinson – One of the first Barker’s Beauties on The Price is Right.
* Smurfette – This was going to be a joke or was it?

I was going to do an honorable mentions section, and in it there was… you guessed it, Morgan Fairchild! Tooo funny! Also there was Kim Richards (escape from Witch Mountain), Tina Louise, Bo Derek (of course!) and ugh, yes, Joan Collins. My parents used to watch too much Dynasty I guess. Her accent crept into my tiny little brain. 🙂

There could be an entire post just on cartoon crushes I think. But that’s for another time…